


An Unstable Beginning

by Zip_Zap_Zeke



Series: Draco's Sour Gift [1]
Category: Original Work, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I'm Sorry, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Major Original Character(s), Mental Health Issues, Murder, Past Torture, Pre-Omnic Crisis, Sharing a Body, Spirit Animals, Temporary Character Death, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-04-12 14:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19134124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zip_Zap_Zeke/pseuds/Zip_Zap_Zeke
Summary: Draco figures out that not everything is as it seems, that not everyone who starts out as sounding rude and distant are all that mean, and that what lies ahead is only the next episode to his life, but first, he has to get use to himself. He is, after all, only 15.





	1. Trust no one

**Author's Note:**

> Draco is an original character I ended up making one day, and I ended up fleshing him out much more than I first anticipated.  
> I hope you have fun reading this, because I sure had fun writing it (Might want a tissue box near by).

“We can't keep going like this forever. You need to face the facts.” A spirit dragon growls into Draco’s face before circling around and continues pacing. It's blue eyes pierce Draco's body, and he lets it impale deeper into his body as his mind follows a thousand different thoughts a second. Brown scales reflect the light coming from the fire like the earth was set ablaze as blue fur slowly moves from the winds coming from the mouth of the cave.

“ _The longer you try and ignore us, the worse we’ll end up_.” A different yellow and brown spirit growls in frustration as it snarls and blood flies out of its mouth.

Draco rocks in a corner of the cave muttering gibberish as blood slowly drips from his mouth. A huge rain storm rages outside the mouth 50 feet away and Draco curls up further next to the fire to try and stay warm.

“ _This is too insane to be real. I'll wake up in my bed, get ready for the ceremony, figure out if I have a familiar, have my party, then sleep. Nothing wrong happened. I'm just having a nightmare. This is just a horrible paranoid ‘what if’ situation.”_ Draco attempts to lie to himself, and think of any excuse to what is in his face not being real while the rest of his mind is running everywhere. The brown and yellow dragon go between being a foot away and 40 feet away.

A third spirit colored green and yellow stays 30 feet away to allow room between them and Draco while the fourth spirit with colors blue and green is curled next to Draco 5 feet away with pity in its eyes. A soft wine squeaks out from the spirits throat, causing Draco to unblock his surroundings and look at them.

“We’re all tired. With clear heads in the morning we can sort things out, but for right now, in order to think, you need a rest,” The green spirit lays down into a ball, “There is a big day ahead, and you will need to rest for it.” The spirit closes its eyes to show it will not harm or trick Draco. With a side glance he waits for the spirit to attack, but after looking around Draco realizes all of them are laying down with closed eyes near the fire. Draco’s body slowly relaxes for the first time the entire day. With a steady drizzling outside of rain, and the crackling of the fire Draco slowly pulls toward being tired and lays down passing out. After the initial snoring the four spirits in a collective thought got up and waited to make sure he was asleep before they picked him up and flew out the cave to find someone to save all five of them.

After making sure they were not going to drop Draco the brown spirit lays on top of Draco exhausted and passes out while they both have blood dripping out of their mouths. The three other spirits try their best to go as fast as they could.

The blue spirit notices a light far away and directed the other two towards it until they could hear who was at the light. They stopped and waited in the path that the strangers said they were going to go in the morning.

“Why did we stop, brother Winter?” The green spirit watches as the other two set down Draco and the brown spirit on the ground. The blue spirit whispers at the green spirit with despair and urgency.

“Quiet down sister Spring. We do not want to frighten the ones that could possibly save our brother Autumn and our new shared vessel Draco. They must think it was natural or we will never get help.” Winter whispers to Spring and she nods sadly.

“I understand. My apologies, brother.” Spring lowers her head as she whispers.

“Let's stop talking. We need as much sleep as we can get.” The yellow spirit curls up next to Draco and closes her eyes.

“You are correct sister Summer, as always.” Winter waits until Spring is situated before laying down as well. Winter lays next to Draco's right shoulder, Spring is on his left shoulder while Summer is on Draco's right hand, and Autumn's head is near Draco's left hand. After some time, all of them fall into a nightmare fueled sleep.

Draco opened his eyes and finds himself in the middle of the forest with a weird crusty feeling on his mouth and down his neck. He attempts to lift his arm but, as it lifts a feeling of a heavy weight in his hands prevent him from being able to lift very far off the ground, so instead he rolls onto his side. A sudden and instant feeling rolls in his stomach. What Draco could image lava feels like rolls up his esophagus and out into the world. Draco's eyes tear up and, for a little with his blurry eyes he almost thinks that he actually did throw up lava because of how red it looks, until the smell of old change engulfs his nostrils.

 _“Blood. I just threw up blood.”_ By now the tears that were forming at his eyes are now running down his face as he watches blood drip out of his mouth after he somehow went up into leaning over the ground with another puddle of blood. Draco tries using his tongue to check his lips to see if they are causing the blood only to notice the absence of it. Last night flashes over his memory and a sob shakes out of his throat. Images of his family surrounding him as his grandma held him down and burnt a brand into his back, waver into his foggy view with the sudden view of five different eyes, as well as the view of a knife close to his mouth while his grandpa holds his mouth open to slice his tongue off. His own scream fills his head with someone else's scream, but he doesn't know or care if the screaming is from before or currently. Black spots start appearing in Draco's view and a far away voice that sounds alarmed until he feels a hand on his back and his whole spine feels like it was set on fire with his mouth and he immediately faints.

“Good morning son, how did you sleep last night?” Draco's mother turns on his light to wake him up and he grumbles back incoherently. “Like a log I see. Well, today's your big day! I expect you to get up and get ready for the party. It is after all, your 15th birthday party, and also your spirit revel!” Draco drags himself out of bed and gets dressed in a simple button up and tie with dress pants and dress shoes. After making sure it looks presentable he leaves his room and walks down the stairs, past the kitchen, and out into the porch where all his family is hanging out at.

The second Draco steps outside everyone looks at him and congratulate him for turning a year older. Everyone has a turn conversing with him and he has fun chatting with everyone until the sky starts to change into an orange hue.

Draco's parents bring him over to the circle of concrete with chairs now all around at the edge of it but not on or past the break between grass to concrete. His parents don't pass the line and only push him onto it while everyone takes a seat except for his grandma and grandpa. Draco glances at the knife in his grandpa's hands before watching his grandma step onto the concrete with a metal pole and the family's brand on the end. She links her arm with Draco's and brings him to the middle where a fire is burning in a pit. His grandma places the pole into the hole and has Draco go to his knees. She let's go of him to circle him.

“What a strong healthy man you will be. I can already feel you have a spiritual connection with multiple spirits, but I don't know how many. My, you are the first case I have seen this in. Let's see here,” Her hand rests on his heart and she nods. “It seems that you have four spirits! I've only ever seen two at most, my, what a turn out!” She laughs and a small whisper mumbles around the family. Draco watches as his grandpa's hand raises and the mumbles quiet immediately. Draco looks to his grandma confused.

“What does that mean? Am I going to die!?” A light panic settles over Draco's heart as a feeling of caution mumbles in his brain.

“Nonsense child, as I said before, you are strong and as healthy as everyone. Here, it's time to start, so you must be quiet from now on. This is your only warning.” Draco sees from the corner of his eyes when his grandpa starts walking over to them. He stands next to them waiting.

A pair of handcuffs clip on Draco's arms and when he looks up, he sees his father's face as he avoids eye contact and backs away to his spot in the crowd next to his mom. No one meets his eyes as he looks around the crowd.

Draco's face is pulled back to look at his grandma in the eyes. Her mouth is stretched into an eerie smile as she locks eyes with him.

“What's going to happen?” Her hand falls over his mouth as she shushes Draco.

“Quiet Draco, unless you wish to be separated with your tongue next time.” A gasp shakes out of his mouth as the grin grows on her face.

Draco's mom walks up and hands his grandma an old book then backs up to her spot again. Draco watches in dread as his grandma mutters in a different language as she flips through the book while walking over to the fire pit. After awhile she finds the page she wants and gets to work.

After different members hand her different things as she calls them out she looks back at Draco while throwing in the last ingredient.

His grandma kneels over the fire and starts chanting something Draco can't understand before grabbing the red metal and pulling the brand out and aiming it a him. With a burst of understanding Draco shifts away only for someone to grab his shoulders and rip the back of the shirt up to reveal his back.

“No, stop, wait! You can't do this!” Draco thrashes around and causes the person holding him to rip his sleeve open. Another person runs up to help hold him down, this causes panic to boil in his veins and he struggles with all his force while the sleeves continue ripping off. A third person grabs the front of his throat and they over power him.

Draco tries yelling anything to make then let go and once he can feel the heat from the rod he can feel tears at the edges of his eyes.

“Five to one, one to five!” Draco watches with fear as his grandma finishes the chant and slams the brand down on his lower back. Draco imagines what it would feel like to be melting plastic flies around his head as well as the thought of how hot the sun is burns into his spine as the feeling of being overwhelmed and getting pushed out of his own body continued until for a second he thinks he can see his body from a birds view before his grandma rips the brand away from his burning flesh and what connected with the metal, stayed with the metal. The only thing Draco can do is cry and scream.

He feels like he might hear someone telling him to be quiet, but all he feels is the throbbing of his heart in his back, until he sees his grandpa's face and his hand keeping his mouth open while holding the knife out. His grandma looks around his grandpa with disgust yet joy.

“I warned you.” Her voice is warped beyond recognition.

Draco tries to remember what she warned him about, but mid though fire erupts in his mouth as well as the feeling of liquid filling his mouth. Out of sudden realization Draco attempts to spit out the liquid but it only comes pooling out. With the last of his strength, Draco lets out a roaring scream as his view splits into five and his pain doubles.

With sudden extraordinary strength Draco breaks free and, after stabbing his grandparents in the chest then head and dropping the knife in the fire he suddenly runs away faster than he ever has until the rain starts to pour.

Draco snapped back to reality as he stands in the middle of a small clearing and looks around. He's never seen these types of trees around where he lives. Draco wraps his hands around his body and slowly waddles around until he spots a cave and jogs over to it. He finds a pile of sticks inside and makes a fire to warm up.

After he calms down a little the feeling of not being alone still crawls on his skin so he looks around only to see three spirit dragons standing and a fourth one somewhat behind them bleeding from the mouth, just like how Draco was. With an increasing sense of fear Draco tries to close his eyes then reopen them to make them go away, but after trying multiple times with no difference Draco ignores them for the fire.

Once one of them tries moving is when Draco freaks out and runs into the rain only to become freezing cold and after thinking for some time, crawls back to the cave where he went to a corner far away from them and as they kept moving Draco was having to accept the fact of what happened, but not ready yet he pushed it away, and kept pushing until he started muttering to himself.

The spirits try talking with him a couple times, but every time only causes Draco to go further into his own self made pit of insanity. No matter how much he tried blocking the voices out of his attention they just remind him of the pain just to much.


	2. Fantasy isn't just for kids

“They don't look so good Ana.” A deep tone mumbles to the left of Draco while a sigh comes from his right.

“Well Gabe, I don't think anyone would after whatever happened with them. I just hope they weren't wandering around in the state we found them in for too long.” A commanding Arabic sounding woman seems to be hopeful, but ready for disappointment on weather Draco lived or not.

“ _ She must be Ana.” _

“Where did you say you found them again?” This voice seems like a nice person, and also sounds a bit German. The first voice, Draco realizes, is American.

“They were found over in Oregon, the state between Washington State and California on the west edge of the U.S, with their back covered in blood and in the middle of throwing up more.” A fourth voice speaks up that practically reeks of authority. The sound of leather moving and a rhythmic beep to Draco's right engulfed the room. Draco suddenly feels in the bottom of his spine a wave of pins and needles run up his back, causing him to have a sharp inhale. The beeping speed up with his heart at the sudden pain.

“Are you sure this kid’s going to make it Ana?” A fifth voice whispers with a Swedish accent.

“I need more time to determine that Torbjörn. They should be in a medical coma for now, but that can change.” Ana sighs, and from what it sounds like fiddles with something to Draco's side. Soon enough the pain subsidies and the heart monitor goes to normal with his heart.

_ “I’m in a hospital.” _ Draco concludes in relief, but the joy gets quickly cut with the authoritative Americans words.

“You have one week for them to be in a coma, if they don't show improvement by then, pull the plug.” With the threat of death in the air they walk off and out the room. Someone sighs and follows the person leaving three left.

“I have faith that you will pull this off, just like always. I will see you both later today, until then, goodbye Ana, and Reinhardt.” Torbjörn sounds near the door on the left.

“Goodbye Torbjörn.” Ana sounds stressed while Reinhardt is up beet. Ana and Reinhardt stay in Draco's room for some time to personally monitor him, until Reinhardt reminds Ana about food and they leave. Once the door closes Draco attempts to open his eyes. Nothing happened except the feeling of sleep fogging his senses.

The feeling of water slowly flows around Draco and his eyes peeled open to a clear blue sky with only the sun in the middle. Draco lets out a content hum.

“So, this is what death feels like.” Draco allows a small smile to form on his face. 

Chuckles from different entities flow from around Draco, but he feels to calm to care, until hands grasp his arms and legs. Draco looks down and sees four different people with wet hair and frowns. The one on his left leg is more clinging onto him, rather than holding on.

It takes a little to realize the problem that they have blood coming out of their mouth into the water. Draco examines each of them carefully. The person on his right arm has an undercut with a fringe swept to the left, and natural brown hair with long lashed ocean blue eyes that seem to read his very soul. They have a small hoop earring on their right lobe and, a frown that you would expect a grumpy old man to have as he yells at you to get off his lawn. The person on his right leg has a chin length natural ocean blue colored bob that mostly covers the gadgets and grass green eyes that reminded Draco of the days he spent in spring laying in the grass looking towards the sky and imagining shapes in the clouds. Her face was as round as a child, but her smile resembled that of a stereotypical vampire with her long fangs sticking farther out than the rest of her teeth, but the more confusing thing about her than her fangs are the two stark black antlers that protrude through her hair. The person on his left arm has an identical bob but colored grass green hair and sunflower yellow eyes, and the bleeding person has yellow hair and brown eyes with a fringe mirrored to the first person.

“Hello there.” The blue eyed boy gives a soft wave and the others follow suit. Draco gives a soft smile and nods.

“Hi. Are you here to collect me?” The green and yellow eyed girls giggle while the blue eyed boy frowns.

“Of course not. Do you remember the four dragons from earlier?” Draco feels his heartbeat pick up in speed, and his stomach do a flip.

“Are you here to torture me?” The four look between each other before the blue boy answered.

“We only wish to speak to you about it. If it is too soon for that we understand and will back off.” Draco quizzically examines each of them before giving in to curiosity.

“I guess it's alright with me.” They all seem to let out a held breath simultaneously.

“We'll start with introducing ourselves. I am Winter, Guardian of the season that my name and colors give a hint towards.” Draco nods before looking to the next person.

“Hey, I'm Spring!” Spring smiles and Draco smiles back, then looks to the other sister.

“My name is Summer, and I am not as hot headed as my season makes me out.” Draco snorts and looks to the last sibling. They give a wave.

_ “I'm Autumn if you didn't guess already.” _ A memory pops up during the ceremony when Draco was getting his tongue removed.

The colors brown and yellow flash in his eyesight and he realizes Autumn's scream was the other voice Draco heard in pain with him. Draco feels the sudden throb of a ghost tongue in his mouth, and he realizes that he was talking this entire time like Autumn. Like there tongues are to big for their mouth.

_ “You tried saving me, why?” _

_ “We became a part of you the second the brand touched your skin. This is to help you feel comfortable while you sort through your thoughts for the impending future.”  _ Draco, growing confused and irritated sits up suddenly and all four try to stop him but don't react quick enough.

Draco can feel as he moves his entire body sinks into the water past the content quiet causing his confusion to click into fear as he flails to grab anything. Draco attempts to hold onto one of the people but his hands just slip off. The four try grabbing towards him but an invisible barrier between them and the water stop them from going further.

Draco's entire body submerges underwater and Autumn smashes his entire body on the barrier until it gives and he attempts to swim to him as he transforms back into a dragon, but realizes his attempts will be useless and quickly goes back up for air. Draco tries yelling to one of the now dragons, but he is already ten feet under, and a group of bubbles fly out of his mouth, but no sound is heard. All four try responding but Draco only sees vague globs of them as he continues to fall in the bottomless pit of water and the light slowly becomes something the water has never met.


	3. Do you believe in ghosts?

Draco doesn't even remember which way is up, and he doesn't even know if he is falling or floating. All he knows is that his heart feels like it could burst out of his chest at any second with how hard it is pumping. After a prolonged pull, Draco's heart actually does float out of his chest and glows with a light red hue in front of his eyes while each beat almost seems to hurt it, and to relieve the pain the next beat is slightly shallower than the last and the light dims with each beat.

_ “No! Wait, you can't do this to me! Please!”  _ Out of desperation Draco tries to grab his heart as tears prick at the corners of his eyes but, like a hologram, it keeps ghosting through his hands. The only thing Draco can do is watch as his heart crawls to a rest in front of his eyes In frustration and desperation Draco snarls at his heart as tears start streaming down his face and his sight becomes a wobbly mess of nothing.

_ “Please! For once, work with me not against me!”  _ In a burst of plea Draco holds his hands behind his heart, but after no response he clenches his fists and draw them to in front of the hole in his chest. Hiccups start bouncing out as Draco covers his face with his hands and curls into a ball.

Draco slowly can feel the pressure of a ground under him, but he can feel nothing about it. As he sobs a random flash of red blinks in the dark space catching his attention, and Draco slowly removed his hands to wipe his eyes then open them only to gasp at the sight. In front of him his heart flashes brightly again and he sees for a fraction of a second that he is in a room that he should know, but he can't put his finger on it until his heart does a longer flash and Draco quickly takes in as much of the room as he can.

A messy bed is pushed into a corner, clothes are littered everywhere, and on an entire side of the room is his signature bookcase. He's in his old room. He stands up and his heart slowly floats towards the door Draco watches as the heart levels to where it should be inside his chest and an outline of his body takes shape until the heart is covered up, and suddenly the light turns on over him and he can see the whole person, or in better words, see himself from before everything. They lock eyes but his younger self quickly looks away.

“Who are you? Why do you look like me?” Young Draco has a firm frown pulled over his fear in an attempt to seem brave. Draco wipes the tears away from his face and slowly stands up. Unsure of what to say Draco blurts out the first think he thinks.

_ “You.” _ Draco tries to speak but over half the pronunciation he can't because his throat is swollen from him crying and screaming. Young Draco tilts his head to the side and with a spur of courage steps closer.

“Why do you sound weird when you talk? Is there something in your mouth?” Draco sighs and shakes his head feeling awkward.

_ “It's more like something is missing.” _ Young Draco grows even more confused by the answer.

“What does that mean?” Draco can feel the sting of tears at the back of his eyes but blinks them away to answer.

_ “You know how weird the Element family is right?” Young _ Draco nods slowly as he starts to circle Draco and examine him.

“What about them?” Draco points to the still fresh brand as young Draco circles behind him. A sharp intake of breath tells Draco he saw it.

_ “This is what I got for trusting them.” _ Draco glances back at his younger self who glaces to his face before looking back away.  _ “ They only greed for power, and don't care who gets injured on the way. I don't know who I am anymore. Because I trusted them, in return I got that and more.” _

“What do mean more?” Young Draco circles to the bed and sits down.

_ “Four dragons, and no tongue.” _ Draco sits down and can feel the soft texture of the carpet as he tries to ground himself.

“Wait, is that why it's hard to speak for you?” Draco nods and can feel the others eyes piercing his skin.

_ “It is still new even to me. Every time I talk I expect to feel it, but in return I feel nothing. The thought is so surreal that I can only imagine that my tongue is numb instead of gone. Once in awhile I get the feeling that it's just resting on the bottom of my mouth, but when I try moving it nothing happens. It's a scary feeling, and just thinking about how I will never be able to talk correctly is terrifying.” _

“Wait, you said something about dragons?” Draco looks up and nods as he can feel tears prick at his eyes.

_ “Yah, they look like the Japanese style dragons called lung dragons with four arms and legs put together, and no wings.” _ Young Draco smiles and leans toward Draco interested.

“Do they each look similar or different to each other? What are their names? How big are they?” Draco chuckles and thinks before answering.

_ “Well, I guess I'll go in order of season. The first one is named Winter, his body in dragon form is sky blue with a long dirt brown mane down half his back, and he has ocean blue eyes. The next dragon is Spring. She has a lime green body, and the same blue Winters body is for her mane, and grass green eyes. Summer has a dandelion yellow body, lime green mane, and sunlight yellow eyes. Last but not least is Autumn. He has a chocolate brown body, dandelion mane, and dirt brown eyes. All four of them look the same but different colors, and from what I can remember is that they can actually change their size from between being as long as a mouse to being as long as a football field because I don't want to try and measure the width of them. All I know is that they are some thick noodles.” _ Younger Draco giggles at Draco's over exaggeration.

“Are you getting use to them yet?”

_ “I mean I guess I could get use to having four dragons in my life. Especially the surprise on peoples faces when I first tell them I have four real dragons.” _ They both laugh at the thought of someone flipping out about real dragons. Young Draco stands up.

“You seem pretty cool. I can't wait to be as cool as you. Well, besides how you became cool.” Draco gives a soft smile at the compliment.

A silence fills the room and Draco feels the silence start to seep into his core, and feels it fill the hole in his chest that he forgot about. Draco touches his hand to his chest and can feel under his skin the hole left from his heart, but remembering the size of his heart the chasm seems much bigger than just his heart. Without realizing it Draco can feel tears ready to fall.

Out of the corner of his eye he watches young Draco walk over to him only to seem to shed an invisible skin to transform into a much older looking version of him. The older Draco sits down next to him and pulls him into his side to sooth him like a child in a side hug. Draco insistently wraps his arms around older Draco and starts to hiccup and cry into his shoulder. Older Draco wraps one arm around his shoulders and has his other hand rest on the top of Draco's head. Draco eventually calms down, but older Draco keeps him in the side hug and waits. Draco rubs his eyes and takes deep breaths to calm down completely before speaking.

_ “You're here to lecture me aren't you.” _ Draco lowers his head only for older Draco to place a finger under his chin and make them meet eyes. Older Draco has a small smile on his face that shows his complete love and affection. Draco looks away from him when older Draco speaks up in a whisper.

“You're scared. I remember when I was in your place.” Draco looks back to him in wonder and he finally lets go of Draco so they can see one another better.

_ “Where are we? I know this is not really not my, or I guess our, old room. What is going on?” _ Older Draco's smile falls with a sigh.

“To abbreviate, you died, and this is where you felt the safest.” Draco looks down at the carpet and thinks it over to comprehend what that means for him.

_ “When exactly did it happen, in both real time and in my head?” _

“Well for real time it was 2:56 pm, and while in the coma it started when you tried sitting up in the water but fell, and your actual heart stopped when you were watching it. You were completely dead once your heart formed the younger you.” Draco nods along as his older self explained what went down. At the end he remembers about the dragons.

_ “Where are the dragons now? What happened to them?” _ His older counterpart gives a smile and holds out his hands to show Draco the two dragon tattoos on the backs of his hands. The right hand’s dragon has a blue body and blue eyes, while it's mane is brown. The left hand’s dragon has a yellow body and eyes, while the mane is green. The left dragon also had black medium length horns that curled inwardly and looked that if they were antlers they would become connected into a circle. Draco awe at them and looks back to his older self’s face.

_ “Where are the other two?” _ Older Draco gives a chuckle.

“I knew you were going to ask so give me a second.” Draco nods and with a sort-of elegance older Draco peels his shit off and folds it before setting it to the side.

Draco gawks at him and sees that the two arm dragons spiral all the way up and over his shoulders, while two more dragons rest near his navel after crawling down from near his armpits. The right dragon’s body and eyes are green, and the mane is blue. This dragon's horns are small and curve out. The left dragon has brown eyes and body, and yellow for the mane. The horns are long and form a loose ‘s’ shape.

As if he could read Draco's mind, older Draco turned around and showed his back. As he was turning Draco noticed before the tattoos rested at the navel they ran down his rib cage then turned. The brand was a bit paled compared to the rest of his body, but what caught Draco's full attention was the four tattoos. The two arm tattoos crawled parallel down his spine to the brand, the two stomach tattoos went down from below the armpits to run down his back next the other two and end on the sides of the brand.

_ “How long did it take to heal?” _ Older Draco looks away in thought before answering.

“I would like to say it felt like a month, but the actual healing process took longer than that. I don't remember the exact length so I can't tell.” Draco nods and suddenly a wave of exhaustion travels through him causing him to yawn. Older Draco sighs and puts his shirt back on before motioning to Draco to stand up, and once Draco is up he holds their hands together.

“The last thing that I know you need an answer for is that the reason why the hole in your chest is so large is to give the dragons space in your body. They had to go somewhere, and they just decided that the heat was better than the brain because it allows you to still make your own choices and be in control.” Draco lazily looks up to older Draco eyes and realizes that his eyes are four different colors. His right eye has blue on the outside with green on the inside, and on the left he has yellow on the inside half and brown on the outside. 

Older Draco gives a soft smile as they start to slowly fade away. Draco snapped into attention as he quickly watches older Draco's face as he pulls him into a hug.

Soon Draco falls through his body and he goes to his knees as the last of his older self leaves Draco's heart in his hands. With a heavy sigh he examines the heart closer and notices a small version of the brand on the front. After some time he slowly brings his hands to his chest, and slower than a snail slides his heart back into place.

Electricity fires through his body causing him to inhale sharply. After the initial shock he slowly uncurls his body and looks to the bed with a newfound purpose. Draco stands up and wobbles over to his old bed. After bracing his arms on the side Draco slowly crawls onto the top and rolls over to lay down on his back. Exhausted he pulls the sheets over his body and closes his eyes to rest.


	4. What asks but never answers?

“It's not working! What do we do!” A bodybuilder looking man paces back and forth with worry. He has yellow long hair and a not so old scar passing over his left eye, causing it to go blind.

“I'm going to try again! We can't lose them! I won't let it happen!” A dark haired woman with a tattoo under her left eye charges up the defibrillator for another shock. Draco looks to where she is staring at and sees his body lying on the bed, pale and his mouth wrapped up. The four spirits float around Draco as they all watch as the woman, Draco thinks is Ana, continues to try reviving Draco's body. Draco gets a sudden random spur of thought and goes near the woman's ear to whisper.

_ “Flip him over.”  _ She seems to have heard him and quickly sets the defibrillator to the side and flips Draco's body over and exposes the bandage to the air and suddenly all of the dragons lunge at Draco and he lunges at the brand.

Suddenly all he can see is the colors of the spirits and a pain in his heart and spine. A yell shakes out of his throat and his eyes bolt open. The feeling of wanting to throw up crawls up his throat and he claws at the wrapping on his mouth while looking for a bucket of some sort. Draco feels a wave of spasms in his back and it crawls to the top, then separates to crawl down his arms and down his sides to his bellybutton. Once the pain stops it crawls back to the brand on his back. Draco can feel the tears and he just continues to even out his breathing. After he calms down the hands on his body keeping him down slowly leave.

“We, we did it. He's back to stable. Although, let's make a note to never put him into a medical coma ever again. I would like to avoid the chance of that ever happening again.” Ana sounds out of breath while Reinhardt sounds scared.

“I wouldn't ever have wished this on even my worst enemy. Your quick thinking of putting them on their stomach was strange, but seemed to worked immediately.”

“I just got the sudden idea to flip them out of nowhere. I'm about as surprised as you. Never in my career of work have I ever had to flip a patient to their back to save them while restarting their heart.” Draco slowly flips himself back over and re-situates himself in the bed.

“Well hello there stranger. Are you okay now? You had a bit of a scare on us a little bit ago.” Draco sees Reinhardt smile at him and Ana turns around to look at Draco. The two strangers examine Draco completely and stop to make eye contact, but for some reason they seem to be more memorized to them than just being polite. Draco clears his throat but just starts coughing. Ana quickly gets a paper cup and fills it with water, then hands it to Draco who nurses small sips out of it slowly. Once the cup is empty Draco decides to resort to just nodding.

“From what I could make out, I recommend that you take it easy and try to let your mouth heal for a couple months at least. If you need to speak later on I will be getting you a tablet to type on.” Draco nods in understanding as Ana stands to fix Draco's IV.

“Hello there young man, I am Reinhardt. This is Ana, and we will be checking on you from time to time. We found you in the middle of the forest in Oregon. You gave us quite a scare, but it seems that you are better now. If you would excuse me I have some business to take care of, but once it is sorted I will check back in for a little.” Draco nods at Reinhardt and gives a small smile as he leaves. Ana grabs a tablet from the side table and scans over some information as she approaches Draco's side.

“If you feel well enough, I would like to ask some questions, if it is alright with you?” Draco examines himself then nods.

“Alright, so the first question is your name.” Draco does a hand gesture to show writing and Ana hands over the tablet so Draco can type in his answers for what he can on the page, then hands it back. Ana looks over the information surprised.

“So, Draco Element. You're only 15?” Draco nods slowly and she continues after doing a once over. She checks with Draco everything is correct before setting it aside.

“Well since everything is in order, would you like the good news or bad news first?” Ana goes serious and waits as Draco thinks. With a weary hand he holds up two fingers.

“Okay, the bad news is that you are supposed to be dead. You're heart flat-lined for over a minute, and no one comes back from that. The good news is that your body refused to go cold and your brain stays active so in some miracle you came back. Although the way you did was irregular, because in order to help I had to flip you over onto your stomach, and you immediately were alive and breathing. Never in the medical field has anyone been flipped to their stomach while getting their heart restart and get revived.” Draco can feel his heart pick up as he realizes how long he was out. His brand under the gauze starts to feel painful and Draco can't help scrunching his face in pain. Ana grows confused, so he points at his back.

“Is the injury causing you discomfort?” Draco nods his head quickly, and she helps him flip over.

“I'm going to check on how the injury is doing.” Ana peels off a corner of the tape and waits for Draco to nod to continue. Once she gets the okay the bandage is peeled off slowly to prevent any ripping, and if Draco needs a break. Once the brand is open to the air Draco let's out a slight shiver. Ana examines the burn closer and cleans up as much as she can.

“Oh my, what happened to you. You poor child, I can't imagine what is going on in your head.” Ana anguished as she carefully treated the burnt skin. Once she is finished she sighs.

“I'm afraid I will have to leave for a bit, but I will have someone come over to keep you company.” Draco nods as Ana nears the door. She leaves and Draco is left with the spirits. He goes to scratch his cheek, but only feels cloth, so he carefully removed the last of the bandage around his face. Soon the spirits appear and watch over Draco. He looks over to each of them.

_ “Hey.” _ Draco's voice cracks after everything that happened.

“Hello Draco. Welcome back to the world of the living.” Spring smiles and slightly approaches Draco before stopping. A silence hovers just above everything, and after Draco not reacting negative she takes another step forward. This continues until she is right next to Draco. He slowly lifts his hand and waits for Spring to respond. She pushes up into his open hand, and with that response he starts to pet her muzzle until she moves away. Spring examines Draco's back and pain filled her eyes as she looks over his body. With a sorrowed wine she lightly bumps her head with his, then circles around his bed to be on his right. Winter slowly approaches and once he gets to the bed he bumps heads with Draco and breaths on the burn. His breath is ice cold and cools the skin into a numbness, but without the painful cold or messy ice. It's more of a soothing nip than anything.

“You did great. I'm glad to get to know you from now on.” Winter has a smile in voice as he goes to sit next to Spring. Autumn and Summer come over at the same time, Autumn being supported by Summer. Once they get to the bed Autumn grabs onto the rail and they both share a knowing look that speaks itself. Autumn rubs his muzzle against Draco's cheek and he smiles in return. Autumn moves to the end of the bed to let Draco and Summer interact. She lets out a chuckle and as she rests their heads together she speaks up.

“You're lucky we're stuck together now. Once you're better we'll get started working together more, but for now, we're going to give you a couple presents.” As Summer pulls back little needle pricks buzz at the intersection between Draco's neck and shoulders. He grunts in confusion and his hand flies up to feel his skin, but instead are small patches growing out of his body. He looks at them for one of them to explain.

“Scales.” Winter looks into Draco's eyes. Draco let's his arm sag back, and thinks it over.

_ “Can I know what the other things will be?” _

“Sure. The first was your eyes, we changed them a bit, so once you get better go look.” Spring practically bounces in her spot.

“The next was us. We are now what make your body whole. When we separate from you to make up ourselves, your body becomes a spirit like us. You are now only whole when we combine, but because we are all connected we all don't look transparent.” Winter is looking at the burnt brand in Draco's back.

_ “Next was tattoos. They help to show we are always there. When we heal, we will go further into detail about what they do.” _ Autumn sounds out of breath.

“The last is the scales. They kind of flow with the information Autumn will tell you later on.” Summer watches over Autumn to make sure he is okay. Spring shrinks on top of the bed and scampers over to Draco and hides under the covers away from the door. The others do the same except Autumn who crawls under the bed in a more dog size, because he doesn't have enough energy to use. Draco hears footsteps outside the door, and understands they didn't have time to form back into him. The door opens to a blonde man in a blue cape with a frown.

“So you're the boy we found in the middle of the forest.” He has the tone of authority written all over him, but stress screams in his eyes. He's never been in a position of this power, and the stress is hitting him hard. Draco realizes he hasn't responded so he slowly nods. The man looks him over confused.

“Something got your tongue, or you refuse to speak?” Sudden fire flares in his veins as the man smiles at his joke. Draco points at his back and the man's smile drops immediately as his attention goes to the ragged and flared up skin around the areas that are absent of skin. He takes a step forward to get a better look but sits down in second thought with a blank face.

“Sorry, Ana told me you were not doing so good, but I didn't know it was so bad.” Draco waves his hand and smiles. Once the man is looking at Draco's face he points at his mouth. The man is confused, and Draco motions for him to get closer, so he goes to the edge of his seat. Draco opened his mouth and the man holds a hand over his own. He sits back after a little, and Draco closes his mouth and lays back down.

“So apparently your tongues literally gone, and I feel even more like an ass. Listen, I'm sorry for assuming anything before I even stepped a foot inside.” Draco waves, then in a question does a reverse motion with his hands. The man takes a second before getting it.

“Oh, want to start new?” Draco nods. “Okay, let me get up and we'll start again.” The man stands up and faces the door for a second before turning around and pretends to come through the door.

“Oh, hello there, I'm Jack Morrison. Ana told me to come and give you company.” Draco smiles and waves, then points at his mouth and does hand motions to show he can't speak because he got his tongue chopped off.

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That sounds terrifying. I'm sorry to be nosy but I can't help but notice your back.” Draco glances back at his back and grimaces, then finally remembers he learned sighs language, so he tries to sign what he remembers.

_ “It is from my family.” _ Jack nods and frowns.

“Is that the reason why you were in the forest?” Draco does a half and half gesture.

_ “That and my tongue. I mean if your entire family tricks you into thinking it will be a normal birthday, but it ends up not, I would hope anyone would flee as soon as they could.” _ Jack shifts in his seat.

“So a week ago was your birthday?” Draco nods but stops and furrows his eyebrows.

_ “What?” _ Jack tilts his head, but realizes his mistake and nods.

“You have been out for one week. Today was the last day you were on life support. I guess that should never have happened.” Jack rubs the back of his neck. Draco soaks in the new information and nods.

_ “Why was I not told before?” _ Draco mumbles quietly as he thinks it over.

_ “We didn't want to dump to much information on top of your head.” _ Autumn mumbles back to Draco in his head. Draco understands why everyone he's seen been so weird. After a little bit of awkward silence Draco hears heels on the ground coming towards the door, so he looks over to it. Jack sees Draco and raises a brow before looking over right as the door opened to reveal Ana. Surprise covers his face and he looks back to Draco who is equally surprised.

“Hello there you two. Are you getting well together?” Ana holds a box with a yellow plus symbol in her hands and sets it to the side to smile at them and have a casual conversation. Draco holds a thumbs up, while Jack nods.

“It's been going well, for the most part. Had a rough start, but besides that, it was nice to get to know each other.” Jack smiles while Draco holds in a chuckle.

_ “I remembered I learned how to sign.” _ Ana watches as Draco signs in surprise.

“Well, that's a bit better, and I'm glad to hear you both get along. So Draco, are you ready for the treatment?” Draco looks to the box and slowly back to her.

“We need to form back into you, or at least Autumn so he can heal with you.” Winter whispers into Draco's hidden ear before going back to his hiding spot. Draco shakes his head and tries motioning to show combination. They both look at him confused, and he huffs frustrated.

_ “Can I show them you all to show my point, and one of you can explain what we mean?” _ Draco looks to the ground with a hard set frown. It takes a while until he gets an answer.

“You are not completely healed, and by exposing ourselves we will be putting you in danger of being kicked out or killed, and we would be in risk of testing, or death.” Summer rumbles into Draco's ear as she clings on him with little sharp claws. Draco scrunches his face in discomfort.

_ “I understand that, but in order to heal I need to bring to attention that I'm not the only one in critical condition.” _ Draco glances at the bed where he thinks Autumn is.

“Um, Draco. Are you okay?” Jack and Ana look to each other to try and understand, but neither know what is going on. With a heavy sigh one of the dragons slithers away off the side of the bed, and as Draco wonders what they are doing Ana gasps and shifts away. Draco turns to see it was Spring who crawled away, and she grew to cat size. She crawls on top of the bed and Jack goes to grab her off the bed, but Draco quickly grabs Jack's arm and blocked him from Spring, causing Winter and Summer to scurry to underneath with Autumn.

“No.” Draco has a steel grip on Jack as he blurts out the two letters that set his throat on fire while his back protests with every fiber. Pain and fear light up Draco's face as he watches both of them.

“What the hell?” Fear flashes between Jack and Ana before Draco croaks out again.


	5. Help is better if you ask nice

“Help. Please.” The words are gargled out in pain that can be heard as Draco's voice cracks with every syllable, while his grip loosens to just holding onto Jacks arm.

Tears pricked at the edge of Draco's eyes as the pain becomes almost deafening, it's either the pain or his heartbeat in his ears, and Jack backs away to sit back down. Draco supports his body by putting most of the weight into his arms as he slouches over the bed. It takes a couple seconds before the ringing in his ears calm down to a more bearable volume.

Draco motions Spring over with his head and shifts so he can hold a hand out for her. Slowly Spring uncurled from a ball and quickly zips over to Draco into his arm. Draco moves his arm to cuddle Spring to his chest, and looks to the other two. Spring crawls up to Draco's shoulder and watches them both carefully before humming to Draco. Draco slowly signs for them to absorb in what he means.

_ “Don't freak out. She is going to introduce herself, and talk for me. As you can tell, I'm bad at talking. Do not attack or she will feel threatened and fight back, or if I get in time, I will defend her.”  _ Draco's hand falls immediately, and he evens out the weight. Ana slowly nods, but Jack looks skeptical.

“How will she talk, and how do you know it's a she?” Jack's face is as blank as a wall. Draco nods up to Spring and she climbs onto his head. She huffs out a breath before starting.

“Hello, my name is Spring. I am the guardian of spring and now I am a piece of what makes Draco whole. I am here so it is faster communication, and to represent my siblings. Once Draco was doomed to die when we were shoved into his body with him, in order to save him my brother Autumn shared the burden of pain and had his tongue sliced from his mouth as well. As we speak he is still bleeding out and has a high chance of infection. All we ask is your hospitality to save my dying brother, and to restore the health of our new companion. If Autumn is to die, the actual season will go into complete chaos and Draco will eventually die from going insane as well. If Draco dies, the earth's seasons will become a war zone and the earth will quickly become uninhabitable by anything. Please, we need your help urgently.” Spring sounds determined once she is comfortable with speaking, but to the end she is near tears and her voice is shaking. Ana looks to Jack pleading for him to make the final answer a yes. Jack looks to Draco as he has a slight sweat building from staying up so long after being in a coma for a week, and dying not long ago. With a sigh Jack closes his eyes then nods.

“What do we need to do.” He looks between Spring and Draco. Draco looks to Spring and has a mental conversation. Spring crawls down to his shoulder then hops off to bed, and goes to the edge. As she sits down she grows to Great Dane size and slithers off the side to poke under the bed.

“Wait, so Spring can change sizes, and is Autumn under the bed?” Draco nods as Spring slowly supports Autumn out of under the bed as Winter and Summer help him from tipping to the side. Once Autumn is completely out Spring shrinks to the same size as her sister while Winter grows to help his brother on top of the bed next to Draco then joins the other two in the size of house cats and Summer is between Ana and Autumn, Winter is spread between Autumn and Draco from Jack, and Spring is cuddled up to Autumn and Draco while Draco is draped over Autumn. Draco sees black spots in his vision as the dragons prepare if either of them try anything negative.

“Wait, there's four of them?” Jack watches them as they all look to him. Draco nods and motions for them to introduce themselves. Winter puffs up and stands high.

“The 'them’ you speak of are as old as the earth, so I would watch your mouth. Just like our sister Spring, we are named after our collective seasons we watch over. I am Winter.” Winter huffs at Jack then goes to Draco's back and starts to cool down his inflamed skin. Summer goes onto her back legs and crosses her arms.

“I'm Summer. You already know our dying brother Autumn and our sister Spring.” Autumn bumps Summer with his snout and she topples over in a squawk and fumbles around in the air until her back hit the bed and she quickly flips over and crawls under Draco's stomach. Ana giggles and takes a step forward. Autumn raises his head at her and she gets down to level with the bed.

“You must be Autumn. Would it be okay if I saw your injury?” Autumn looks to Draco and in return he opens his mouth towards Ana. Autumn looks back and slowly opens his mouth to let her work. She leans in and inspects his mouth for a little before nodding and sitting up.

“So it appears from what I could make out is that you need stitches.” Draco rests his forehead against Autumn and slowly closes his eyes. Listening to them talking and hearing Autumn's heartbeat lulls Draco to sleep quickly.


	6. Some nightmares are better than the truth

When Draco opened his eyes he is sitting at a table with his mother at the opposite side teaching him. A hand slammed in front of him and Draco looks up to his mother sharply.

“You need to have this skill in the future to succeed. Learning multiple languages gives you a upper-hand when looking for jobs, because it shows your dedication to learn and that you are not going to be rude to other people from around the world. More people visiting from different countries mean more money.”  Draco's mother signs as she drones on about responsibility and he goes back to learning after she doesn't stop for a minute. Draco finishes his packet and stands up, but his mom stops talking and they lock eyes.

_ “Where are you going?” _ Draco's mother only signs at him.

_ “I'm finished with the packet, and I was going to give it to you.” _ Draco signs back and grabs his packet. His mom squints her eyes and holds out her hand, so he walks over and hands the paper to her, then stands next to her and waits. She carefully looks over everything before shaking her head and highlights almost every answer.

_ “It almost seems like you are taking my lessons for granted. A pity, because not a lot of people get the opportunity like you do freely. This time actually pay attention to what is being asked.”  _ Draco stares down at the paper in hate as his mom holds it out to him. After a bit of silence she sighs and sets the paper down to lightly lift Draco's head up and meet his eyes.

_ “Honey, what's wrong?” _

“You lied to me. You all lied to me my entire life. None of you expected me to live past 15, and yet here I am providing you all wrong.” His mother's face contorts from a sorrow pout to a sneering smile.

“And yet we all still fooled you. You should have burned the book while you were at it. This family has a couple tricks up our sleeves.” Draco pushes his mom away from him and watches as she continues cackling. Draco turns around and start running away as fast as he can from her to block out her laughing. As he skids past a corner he sees his grandma behind the pit as she reaches into the fire pit. Draco turns around to leave but only wood meets his face.

“You always were the brat of the house. Even though you were only born to die, you made it clear that you had other things to do.” Draco turns around to look at her, but instead of being far away Draco looks down and can see the inside of the pit.

_ “What do you mean by that Lyra?” _ Draco frowns as she looks up at him smiling.

“Being formal to your own grandma? That hurts me.” Lyra shakes her head slowly.

_ “Answer my question.” _ Draco clenched his fists as he growls at her.

“I would answer, but what's the fun in that?” In a blink Lyra stands up with the knife and plunges the red blade into Draco's head like he did with her. “An eye for an eye.” Lyra's cackling fills his head as others laughing bleed into hers.

With a jolt Draco bolts up as his heart runs a marathon. He feels around his head for any knife sticking out of his forehead.

A hand rests on his shoulder and all he can see is the sacrifice as his cousins hold him down. His hands are free this time so he pushes the arm away and scrambles away to not let his cousins get a hold of him again.

The ground under him disappears and he topples over falling. A voice yells to him but it is muffled by his hands over his ears. The moment Draco's back hits the ground it feels like his entire spine has shattered and a scream pierces his throat while his hands fly away from his ears to lay flat on the ground.

“Wait for him to re-situate.” A cold voice grumbles out as others try bickering with them and the sound of chopping cuts the air.

“He just fell and screamed murder!”

“Draco is still just a human at the end of the day! He is only 15 and has already had to kill two family members, have his entire body destroyed, and learn his entire family was a cult that was only waiting for him to be old enough to kill him and use his body for many unnatural rituals, while trapping his spirit between the afterlife and life to do their bidding.” Winter growls at everyone as Draco absorbs what he is saying.

_ “So that is what Lyra meant.” _ Draco mumbles under his heaving breaths. He closes his eyes for a second but the view of his family all smiling at him causes his eyes to blink open. 

With a slow push Draco sits up and looks over to where everyone is at. All four dragons watch him carefully as he shifts his weight to allow his legs to go underneath him. Draco slowly lifts his arms up and holds his hands out to the dragons. Without a second to spare Autumn goes to his left, while Spring goes too his right and they both slowly grow to bring Draco up with them. Their arms wrap around Draco as they walk over to the bed and slowly lay him on his stomach.

“Are you okay now?” Summer rests her paws on Draco's cheeks and shifts his face back and forth to check for any new injuries. With a slight nod Draco relaxes in her paws as she pushes a pillow under his head. Winter lightly licks Draco's back and applies a cooling salve to reduce the swelling. All of the dragons eventually stop babying him and rest around his body.

“Are you fine for now?” Ana looks to Draco with worry and with a slow nod Draco smiles softly.

_ “Yah, I'm good. Sorry for freaking out like that. I just had a nightmare before waking up, and it caused a flashback to happen.” _ Ana nods with a sad smile before walking away to the door. With a small sigh she goes through the door and to the left. Without thinking he can hear her walking away for a longer time than he was first able to hear through the metal walls.


	7. Time is the best cure

With a shaky breath Draco looks to each of the dragons for confirmation. Autumn looks as nervous as Draco feels and they lock eyes for a second to assure both themselves and the other.

_ “Ready.” _ Draco closes his eyes and the dragons close theirs as well.

Within seconds all four fly at Draco and the second they make contact with the brand a shiver rolls over Draco's body and Draco bounces between his feet to help with the odd feeling.

Draco looks down and watches the outlines of tattoos travel around his arms and middle of his body with a giddy smile until his shoulders and neck start to itch. Draco quickly goes to the bathroom and looked into the mirror where he sees scales all across his shoulders and neck before most of them slowly fade to leave patches of scales.

_ “This is weird!- It's like a can of sardines. I don't even know what sardines are!- Are you okay Draco?- I guess I could get use to this.” _ All four dragons voices mumble around Draco's body as he suddenly feels tight in his body.

_ “Yah, I'm just feeling like I'm about to burst through our skin.” _ Autumn hums in understanding and the others slowly calm down with him.

“How do you feel this time?” Ana watches Draco carefully as they just stand in the middle of the room looking far off. With a smooth transition Draco looks to Ana with a smile.

Spring and summer are giddy to do some exercises so they answer for Draco.

“We can't wait to get started today Ana!- What are we doing today?” Ana laughs and ruffles Draco's head. A ghost of Spring and summer slowly bleed out of Draco as they continue talking.

“Alright girls, calm down. You're practically bursting out of Draco!” The girls stop talking and the shadows snap back to Draco. A shock flies through all of the dragons as Spring and Summer shove back into Draco. Ana thinks for a second before grabbing Draco's arm and dragging them out of the bathroom. They pass Jack and Ana grabs Jacks arm before going to the door. Once outside of the door they go to the left as Ana flies down the corridor with the two dragging behind her to the training deck. Once at the door Ana lets go of both of them to open the door.

“Ana, I don't think this is a good idea. There's new recruits today. I think Gabe is training today-” Ana grabs them again and burst through the doors backwards and lets go to close the door behind them.

“Gabe is doing what today? Oh, he's doing that.” Ana turns around and sees a group of 20 people standing in formation in the large middle section of the room while Gabe is standing in front of them staring at the little trio. Ana grabs them again and pulls away to the wrestling mats. Gabe goes back to talking to the recruits as some of them continue watching out of the corners of their eyes.

“Alright, so since I saw that when the girls were talking they were splitting away, so I was wondering if you could try to split into each of your separate selves, but still technically being within Draco. Does make sense?” Draco does a half and half gesture. “Okay so I need all five of you to just act like yourselves and try to clash from being in sync. Does that help more?” Draco gives two thumbs up.

“Whenever your ready.” Ana smiles softly while Jack watches them like they are crazy.

With a slow breath Draco closes his eyes.

_ “Do you guys think you can do something like that?- Well, we can also one up that.- Want to see something we figured out we can do?- We are the guardians of the seasons, of course we can do something as simple as this!- Yah, we can try.” _ Draco nods his head and opens his eyes.

The first thing Draco feels is a prickling feeling on his brand before he covers his mouth to help keep the volume down.

_ “But I thought we were supposed to be ourselves?” _

_ “Not like this!” _ Draco uncovers his mouth to let Winter whisper. A giggle erupts from Spring. Autumn laughs with his sister.

_ “Come on Draco! Just relax, we can do this!” _ Summer flails her arms, but only ghost arms flailing around causing her to stumble and fall to all fours. Autumn holds his stomach laughing, but he is also a ghost. Winter rolls his eyes and folds his arms.

_ “All of you are so immature.” _ Draco nods and he is also a ghost.

_ “Your no fun Winter!” _ Spring stomps her arms onto the ground and even though she is translucent her body still makes a sound. Autumn whips his head back in a laugh and topples over onto his back completely separating. Summer jumps back at the noise of Autumn toppling over and landing on all fours. Spring huffs and steps away from inside of Winter and Draco. Draco places his hands on his head and kneels beside Autumn and places his hand on Autumn. Winter shakes his head and sighs but with the full separation he wavers before balancing on his back legs.

_ “Autumn! Are you okay?” _ Draco looks at Autumn concerned and unsure. Autumn nods his head.

_ “Yah, I'm fine. That was just really funny!” _ Autumn gives a smile but with his muzzle it looks more like a snare. Spring giggles and sits down.

_ “Hey Draco.” _

_ “Yah?” _

_ “Watch this!” _ Spring hops up and goes over to Ana who is now watching her.

“What do you think your trying to do?” Ana looks amused until Spring nuzzles her side and pushes her closer.

_ “Don't be shy Ana! Come play with us!” _ Ana looks up to Spring with amazement and lets herself get pushed over. She examines Springs spirit dragon form as she trails behind her until the other four are standing together and she watches them all carefully. Draco shrugs his shoulders and waits for the four now spirits to initiate their plan. Spring shuffles Ana to be in front of Draco then goes into the order. They all huddle to be touching each others shoulders and look to Draco to finish the line, and with a suspicious glance he rests his hands on the sisters shoulders and with a shock they all become humans.

“How?” The siblings all giggle in a silent conversation as Draco looks to himself and notices as he turns his head that a massive itch crawls over his neck and shoulders. He goes to scratch his neck but the scales stop him. Confused he goes over to a mirror and sees that the scales spread over his entire neck and shoulders as they glint in the light like small fragments of glass. He moves his head around but a light color from above his head catches his attention.

A pair of cream antlers protrude from his stark black hair. One branch is a long oval, a shorter almost circle branch protrudes under the disconnected oval while a different branch goes in the opposite direction, but between the other two. Draco looks back to the dragons and notices that three out of the four have black horns coming from their head. Winter shrugs as he is the only one who has nothing from his head. Spring has horns that almost close into the circle, Summers horns go out opposite ways as if trying to make two separate circles, and Autumns horns curve inward in a circle going outward then circles back in halfway and becomes an oval going in but not connecting. Draco realizes his antlers are all of theirs combined.

_ “When? Why? How!” _ Draco’s fingers fly around like an angry Italian.

“Can I say it? Please?” Spring shifts from foot to foot in anticipation. Winter gives a rough sigh before shrugging and sitting down.

“So you know how when we all formed together right? So when that happened in order for us all to fit we had to share a part of ourselves with you so you didn't die immediately by us overwhelming your body, so now we all can become human, and you can become a dragon. As a gift of being sorry we all gave you something else. The antlers change with each of our seasons. We also helped you be more strong, so we gave you scales, and yes they can change how much they show. Also if you didn't notice before we filled in the grey for your eyes with our colors. I hope you like it. Also you have to change with the moon with dragon shifting, so sorry about that.” Draco stares at his eyes and sees on the right eye from the outer edge to the inside the color goes from a sky blue to grass green, and on the left from the inside to the out it is sunflower yellow to dirt brown. Draco gives a curt nod of appreciation before looking away to the four.

_ “Anything else that you want to tell me?” _ Winter nods while the other three shake their heads.

“As you will learn throughout the next years is that for every moon phase the tattoos change and the urge to stay in the dragon form becomes almost impossible the closer to a full moon it gets. Lucky it is only the first moon of the new season.” Draco tilts his head confused.

“Starting on a new moon and going towards a full moon: the only thing that will be visible is that the brand will have four dragon heads, each representing one of us with the respective colors of us. Each night the brand will slowly lose more color as the four tattoos crawl up your body. First will be Winter and Spring: theirs will climb your spine and go over your shoulders to start spiraling down your arms and have their heads rest on the back of your hands. Summer and Autumn will wrap to your hips then crawl their way up your ribs to below the armpit and curve back down and rest their heads on either side of your belly button. Every time the seasons shift to the next, the next full cycle of the moon will cause you to transform.” Draco stares at Summer stunned into silence.

“Oh! Also we can do one more cool thing! Ready?” Spring looks to her siblings in anticipation. Winter nods and holds up five fingers, four, three, two, one. A wave of light around them causes everyone to look away.

“Sorry about that.” A voice that sounds like Winter but with an undertone of Spring wobbles out as the area seems to calm down. Two people are standing next to each other with goofy half smirks on their faces. They both have pointy ears like an elf, and teeth that could make a werewolf look to have human teeth. The person on the right has green fading into blue hair, Springs horns, and their right eye is blue while their left is green. A blue tail with green feathers on the end swishes back and forth. The person on the lefts hair is yellow that fades to brown, Summer and Autumns horns combined. Their eyes are yellow on the right, and brown for the left. Their tail is brown with yellow feathers at the end and it's slightly curled to rest in front of their feet.

_ “We tend to forget about that.” _ Summers voice is garbled with a hint of an extremely low bass while they sign.

“How fascinating.” Ana circles the two amazed as Draco pulls Jack over to stand next to him.

_ “Stop being awkward Jack.”  _ Draco lightly signs to Jack with a half smile.

“I'm just observing. What's so bad about that?” Jack bumps Draco's hip and smiles back as they watch Ana start to get more personal with the siblings.

“It's interesting to see you combined without Draco. Say, how human are you both?”

“Since we are a part of Draco now, in these forms this is as close as we can get. Before we didn't look human at all.” Draco steps forward and scrutinizes them both as a hush settles between them besides Gabe's talking to the recruits.

“ _ It suits you guys. Can you all combine besides this combination? _ ” A smile crawls up Draco's face as the twins' eyes light up.

“We sure can! This is just the one we like best to help even everyone's emotions.” Winter/Spring tries to fight down a giggle.

“Do you already have a name for when you combine like this?” Ana starts rapidly typing on a tablet. They seem to ponder for a little before nodding their heads.

“We just combined our names. Wing and Sutum.” Wing shrugs. Ana does a full checkup of both of them as they are giggling from the soft treatment. Draco rolls his eyes as he leans on Jack. With a startle Jack looks down to Draco in concern.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” He wraps his arms around Draco and rubs his shoulder in concern. Draco looks up to Jack with a soft smile and nods before looking back to the twins sitting with Ana as they talk.

_ “Just a little tired is all. It takes a lot out of us do anything with combination or separation.” _ Jack lets out a soft hum of understanding and slowly has them both sit down with the others. Without realizing it, Draco falls asleep on Jack's shoulder.

“Hey, Draco. Open your eyes sleepy head.” Summer paws at Draco as his neutral expression turns to annoyance as he pops open one eye.

_ “What.” _ Draco chokes out, not wanting to sign. Summer chuckles as she rests her head on his stomach. Before speaking she lets out a huff and caused the water to ripple underneath Draco. It's the same place he was before he died. A twinge snaps at his heart as he remembers what happened last time.

“We all need to talk.” Spring slithers on top of the water like a snake swimming, but with front arms paddling. She slides onto his legs to rest.

_ “About what?” _ Draco slowly draws his attention back to Summer, who with a closer look is actually Sutum.

“ A lot really, but we know you have questions. Let's start with what you want to know.”

_ “Well, I guess we can start with the obvious. Tell me more about the moon cycle.” _ The twins look to each other and start to explain everything.

“I think that's about it.”

“It is.”

“Cool! So, you understand now, right?”

_ “Yah. I got it. It seems like we have forever in here, so I would have asked. To be fair, it does make a whole lot more sense now. All I need to do is practice.” _ They all chuckle for a little. Draco sighs as they all calm down.

“Draco?” Wing stops drawing invisible patterns into his legs. Both twins look to him with sad faces.

_ “I think it's time for me to finally wake up.” _ The twins give nods of understanding before becoming fully human, having a hand on each shoulder, and the other grasping Draco’s hands. With sad smiles they slowly push Draco under the water until he is submerged just below the surface. With a content sigh he closes his eyes and feels the water going back and forth until a feint weight pushes at his side, and wraps around to his other side on his shoulder. Once the rhythmic shaking stops and only the weight is present Draco slowly opens his eyes. From what he can tell, Ana is just finishing her conversation with the twins. Draco lets out a yawn as he stretches out. Jack chuckles behind him and shakes his shoulder.

“Good afternoon sleepy head.” Draco wines and slithers out of Jacks arms after turning and hugging him with a soft squeeze.

_ “Thanks.” _ Draco’s voice is five octaves lower as he whispers. Jack lets out a slight jump, and Draco lets out a laugh that sound like someone is playing a tuba. The second he gets up two bodies glop him back onto the ground as they all laugh. Each laugh distinguishable within the others.

“Draco, want to fight?” Draco immediately calms down, and grows confused.

“To train.” Sutum rolls their eyes. Draco lights up and nods.


	8. Some fights are good

“Are you sure about this?” Ana looks between the five humans who size each other up.

“We will know when to stop. Nothing will be a fatal blow.” Winter assures Ana with a smile.

“If you say so. It still doesn't stop me from worrying.”

“Whenever you all are ready, go ahead.” Jack gives two thumbs up. Behind him Draco notices Gabriel watching as the recruits pack up. He stops them and points over to where the fight is about to commence. Autumn gives a slight bump to Draco mentally in concern. Draco snapped his attention back to the four and readies up with a wave of calm to Autumn. They all hear the many footsteps coming towards them and Winter huffs out air.

_ “I guess we now have an audience to please.” _

_ “I guess I now have to please both you guys, and them.” _ Draco darts back and forth before Spring giggles.

“I hope you remember that this is only practice. It's also not being scored. We just need to know where we need to start.” Draco nods and suddenly he starts to feel muscle memories that he didn't know before.

“Want to try them out?” Summer gives a devious smirk to Draco as he realizes what the memory is for. He nods and they all stop circling before they all close their eyes and sharply inhale.

In unison they let out a Jurassic roar that pierces the silence as they all shift into human sizes of their dragon forms. In unison they charge as they shift and collide with one another and roar. Winter and Autumn use their back legs to hold ground, while they use their arms to push Draco's shoulders. Spring and Summer wrap the bottom half of their bodies around Draco's back legs and latch onto his body with their arms.

Draco bites at the brothers, and kicks at the sisters but knowing it is useless he quickly slashes with his tail and whips the sisters who scream and latch to the brothers to spin and lunge at Draco. They slam into him and he simply shakes them and the brothers away. Winter growls as he starts to pace, Autumn sits down and glares. The sisters wrap around each other and mumble. Winter is the first to charge Draco.

They scream and butt heads, Winter nearly avoiding the points at the ends of Draco's antlers as he uses them to pick Winter up and fling him across the mat. Spring and Summer sprint crawl towards Draco, but they all collide heads, horns getting stuck in antlers. Draco throws them next to Winter, but notices Autumn is gone.

With a roar behind him Draco looks back as he readies his tail to swat Autumn back. Autumn avoids his tail and latches to his back, causing Draco to become unbalanced and staggering. Autumn screams sandpaper into his face as he pushes Draco over ready to impale his chest. Draco quickly shrinks and avoids Autumn's horns as he rolls away and grows back to slam Autumn in the side.

Winter has had time to watch Draco move around long enough that when he charges him he grows small to avoid Draco's head, and regrows under him to make him go flying away. Spring and Summer snatch him out of the air and curl their bodies tightly around him and stop him from being able to move. Draco tries to shrink out of it, but the sisters are right there with him. Winter comes charging at them, only to stop a breath away from Draco's face and roars into his face as a sign of victory.

The room goes wild as the dragons help Draco up and go back over to Ana and Jack. Since they started Gabriel and his group joined, Reinhardt had arrived, and a couple others that Draco had talked to just a couple of small times. Reinhardt slaps Draco on the back with a large grin on his face, Jack is shaking Gabriel's shoulders in excitement, and Ana has her arms crossed and a light smile on her face.

“That was fucking amazing! Where did you learn to do that?”-“Since when did they arrive? We could have used them on the field!”-“Can I learn that?”-“I would be down for them to teach me anything!” About 15 people were talking all at once to Draco, or about him. At that point the dragons had reformed with Draco so it was a bit easier to answer everyone, but with so many sudden people surrounding them he can't focus. The dragons give him comforting hugs from the inside. Draco's can feel his heart going a mile a second, and his breaths are slowly catching up with the beat. Everything seems to start to bleed together as his eyes dart over the crowd of what now seems like thousands of people.


	9. Audiences

_ “Do you need us to take over?” _ They all whisper to him, and it seems to block out everything else. Draco closes his eyes and slowly slumps into a ball on the ground. Spring bumps her nose on Draco’s arm, and he gives her nose a light rub before sighing.

_ “I guess. I just need a slower interaction.” _

“We can split our attention. We'll take the brunt of the attention, and let you only focus on a few people at a time. Sound good?”

_ “Very, thank you. I just need a little to calm down.” _

“We've been already on it the second we saw you start to break down. Take as long as you need.” Summer lays next to Draco somewhat distracted, probably answering people.

_ “Are you sure you are ready? We could let you rest until we get back into our room.” _ Draco shakes his head.

_ “I need this. I’m just going to watch. I won't be answering anything. All I need is the exposure to people. If there is a question that you guys can't answer, then I might step in for a little.” _ Autumn became human some time ago and watches Draco’s face as he prepares himself. Autumn smiles and bumps his shoulder against Draco’s, knocking him out of his focus.

_ “Relax.” _

_ “Sorry.” _ Draco gives a sheepish smile as Autumn ruffles his hair. A quiet slowly falls onto them as they wait. Like a cloud a slow mumble waves over them and the darkness seems to waver as a room starts to appear. The training deck appears and Draco stands up with Autumn. The other dragons slowly appear as humans as well and they glanced at Draco with smiles before looking back into the empty room, talking to no one.

“Wait, really? That's amazing!”- “How were you not scared?”- “I would never be able to do that.” The quiet mumble starts to become distinct as people start to appear in front of the siblings that can speak, but because they are using Draco’s body they are signing so to not strain his throat. After listening to the siblings talking with only one person each he lets himself slowly relax. Slowly more people appear after he grows comfortable. At the point where Draco can't seem to be comfortable is when the siblings had moved closer to him with 5 people each, including Autumn at this point, as they all talked.

“I think you all have strained Draco enough. Now knock it off!” Gabriel’s voice cuts through the mumble as the recruits quickly quiet down and a couple more faces start appearing. They start walking away after saying their farewells to the siblings.

“That was fun.” Summer rolls her eyes as she slowly transforms back into a lindwurm with Spring.

“Just peachy.” Winter, now as his regular lung dragon self huffs frozen air crystals.

“Hey Draco, how are you holding up?” Draco’s attention snaps to Ana as she looks at him expectantly.

_ “Good, just a little shaken up is all.” _

“Mhm,” Ana gives Draco a look that shows that she knows he is lying through his teeth. “Well if the siblings are now exhausted, tell them I said thanks. Think you can do that for me?” Draco gives a thumbs up as blush dusts his face.

_ “Yup.” _ Ana laughs and ruffles his hair.

“Let's bring you back to you room. Sound good?” Draco nods enthusiastically and takes a step, but the second he puts pressure on his leg it seems to continue longer than he thought it would take, until he realizes that he is falling as the world tips in his view. Draco braces for the impact, but a hand grasps his arm and stops him from impacting the ground as they haul him back up. Jack's worried face darts across Draco as he mother hens him.

“You okay?” All Draco can do is shake his head as he sags on Jack’s side.

_ “Tired. Too much combining and separating.” _ Draco sounds like if sandpaper could speak.

“Alright, up you go.” Jack picks up Draco and carries him in his arms all the way back to his room. Ana walks behind them and Draco reaches his hand out to her which she immediately grabs with a soft smile. Draco gives a soft squeeze that Ana smiles about, with a pat she squeezes back before pulling away and going in front to grab the doors for them. Jack lightly sets Draco down on his bed and the second Draco is on the bed he looks to the calendar. November 30, 2046. Draco looks away with shock. It's been 3 months since he was found.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ana sits next to Draco pulling him out of his thoughts.

_ “Hm? Yah, just thinking, sorry. Has it really been three months?” _ Both Ana and Jack look over to the calendar where Draco is looking at again.

“I guess it has. It's been so wild these past weeks.” Jack shrugs and sits on the opposite side, sandwiching Draco in the bed. Draco can’t keep his eyelids open all the way by now as he hums in agreement.

“Rest, we’ll be here when you wake up.” Ana brushes a stray hair out of Draco’s face. Draco lets the weight close his eyelids and the darkness pull him under.


	10. The infinite cycle of life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, the four dragons in human form are the same age as Draco, even as he continues to grow up, so do they.  
> Also every time they become human they are automatically naked, if they weren't then it would mean that as dragons they were already wearing it.

“Hey sleepy head, time to get up.” Winter shakes Draco awake as his eyes slowly open to look up at Winter fully clothed for once. Draco looks at him confused, and still tired. Winter looks at him also confused. “What?”

_ “Clothes.” _ Winter looks down then back at Draco confused until a slow pink colors Winter pale appearance.

“Yah, uh, it’s the start of my season, so I was kicked out physically because of the pressure built up. I guess you finally healed enough that the cycle will start up now.” Winter kicks at the ground almost like he is awkward about it.

_ “When were you kicked out?” _

“Last night.”

_ “Is that why you have on clothes?” _

“Yes and no.”

_ “What do you mean by that?” _

“I was cold so I tried to crawl back into the bed but I realized it is only big enough for one person across so I just went through your clothes to try to find something that fits. As you can see, nothing really did, I think. Human sizes are very weird, so I have no clue.” Winter shrugs. He in fact was not lying. Most of everything looked like it was a bodybuilder in child size clothing. Draco chuckles and pushes up to throw his legs in front of him and stand up, but he stumbles a little. Winter moves to help him and a rip echoes in the room as Winter’s face grows red again. Draco sighs and after completely waking up starts to sort through his clothes.

_ “Take what you have off.” _ Draco sighs as he realizes the full weight of how thorough he has to be. After holding up a couple pieces of clothing to Winter, Draco is left with boxers. Draco sighs heavily as he pushes Winter over to the bathroom.

“Why are we going here?”

_ “Shower.” _ Winter slowly starts to move more on his own as he gets into the shower and stands looking around. Draco grabs two towels, one in case he has to help Winter like a toddler. Draco explains to Winter how a shower works, why you use soap, and what the towel is for. Winter nods along fascinated until Draco starts to leave.

“Aren't you going to stay?” Draco sputters in his step with the question.

_ “No…” _

“Why not? Is that not something humans do?”

_ “No?” _

“Why?” Draco’s face is redder than a fire as he sputters over his words.

_ “Well-uh, it’s a little, how can I put this.” _ Draco waves his hands around. After many awkward attempts from both of them, Draco gets the idea into Winters head that humans are very personal when it comes to more “sensitive” subjects. Winter gets it into Draco’s head that he has no utter clue how to do almost anything that is human.

Out of all the years he and his siblings have been alive, none of them made the conscious choice to follow human lifestyles at all. Draco uses the second towel to cover his eyes as he walks Winter through one of the most simple things a human does. Besides the trying not to drown, Winter your lungs need air not water so stop for the 10th time that's why it hurts and causes your body to start coughing it back out.

“I hated that.”

_ “If you want, next time I can just hose you off like a dog.” _ Draco smiled at Winter as he rolls his eyes. Draco continues to rub Winters hair dry as they continue talking about anything that comes to mind.

“Hey Draco?”

_ “Hm?” _

“Do you ever wish you could get rid of us?” Draco completely stops at the sudden question. Winter moves the towel and looks up at him concerned. Draco slowly moves his hands away and slides down the wall in though. Winter turns around to face Draco concerned. “Draco? Did I say something wrong?” Winter slowly tries to comfort Draco as he sinks back to attention.

_ “Sorry, I’m okay Winter. It’s fine, I just got lost in thought.” _ Winter slowly nods.

“I’m sorry. I didn't mean for you get so distressed.”

_ “It’s not your fault. It just reminded me of when I was dying. Nothing that big to fret over. It was a long time ago by now.” _

“Have you had time to actually think about it. To tell yourself that you are fine now?” Draco glances at Winter before shaking his head.

_ “Not really.” _ Winter gives a soft smile.

“I’ll handle today for you then. I just need you to rest today. I’ll leave Autumn with you, and take my sisters with me. Sound like a plan?” Winter holds onto Draco’s hands as he waits for him to answer. Draco nods after thinking it over. Winter sets his forehead against Draco’s and they both close their eyes as the sisters tattoos appear on Winter’s stomach. Once they are done Winter pats Draco’s shoulder and helps him up. Winter’s eyes turned from blue to his right eye being blue and green like how Draco’s usually is, and his left being instead of brown it is blue, but still also yellow. Draco looks into the mirror at himself, and sees that his right eye is completely grey just like how it was before the dragons, and his left is brown on the outside, but fades to grey towards the inside. Draco’s hair was instead of being a brown was starting to grow out black, causing a natural fade.

_ “How long should I rest?” _

“As long as you need.” Winter smiles before walking out of the bathroom and into the bedroom where Draco flops back onto the bed, leaving Autumn standing with a soft smile as he sits at the edge of the bed. Winter gives him a thumbs up as he leaves the room.

Autumn looks down over at Draco who is already sleeping again. As Autumn waits for Draco to be well rested he starts to clean up the room. As he cleans he can’t help but remember as Draco was thinking he could see what he was remembering. It must have been terrifying for him. It’s hard to remember that Draco is only 15. He acts so much older, but then again, he was kind of forced into growing up. Autumn's guess for what percentage of kids Draco’s age had to go through the same thing he did is slim if at all there.

_ “Autumn?” _ Autumn’s thoughts gets interrupted by Draco calling for him. As soon as he hears his name he goes over to Draco with a smile. He quickly checks the time. Exactly noon, perfect.

_ “Good afternoon.” _ Draco yaws and peeks an eye over at the time with a sigh.

_ “It doesn't feel like it.” _

_ “You're most likely hungry. Anything specific you want? Winter can get it. He’s out in town right now.” _

_ “Hm, maybe some orange juice, some surprise candy, in the salt taffy genre, and some greens?” _ Autumn nods with a smile.

_ “Your favorite candy is salt taffy?” _

_ “Yah, not a lot of people would think it to be. Why?” _

_ “Took you more for a sour person.” _ Draco smiled at Autumn and shrugs. A quiet settles over the room as they both think of something to say. The quiet is almost defining as they look around. Draco is the first to break it.

_ “So, I guess we can just jump straight into it.” _

_ “Who should start?” _

_ “Let's start from after I fell. So I guess you can start with asking me?” _

_ “Uh-hm, I guess-well, no. Alright, can you try to explain what you saw?” _

_ “Sure.” _ Draco and Autumn try to explain to one another what happened when the other was gone. The one factor they can agree on was that they were scared. As they continue talking they go back and forth between signing and talking. They also mention the whole missing muscle in their mouths situation. Tears fall almost constantly and at some point Autumn started to spoon Draco as he curled into a ball.

_ “That was fun.” _ Autumn can hear Draco rolled his eyes, which causes him to let out a light chuckle. Draco slithers out from Autumn's grasp and pulls him up, off the bed.

_ “What are you planning on doing?” _ Draco shrugs and pulls Autumn to the dresser. After putting some clothes on Autumn, him and Draco are about the same size except height, they leave the room as Draco navigates a map on his tablet. After a little Draco no longer is looking at it and stops at the doors. With a glimpse up Autumn sees they are in front of the mess hall. On que Autumn's stomach suddenly growls.

_ “Let's get some food while we wait for Winter to come back.” _ Autumn shrugs and they both go inside.

 

A consuming drone of different conversations fill the two's ears as they can barely hear themselves think.

“ _ I never thought I would say this, but this is worse than the girls being rowdy. Especially Spring. _ ” Autumn seems to curl up into himself as they shuffle through the crowd to the feeding station. Draco holds Autumn’s hand and gives him a soft squeeze of assurance.

_ “At least they're not talking about us. Well yet at least.” _ Draco herds Autumn through the line before having the two of them sit at a fairly empty table.

_ “I guess all that will happen for now is that we eat. Winter's started on his quest back, but knowing the sisters, their half hour walk back could become three or more hours if we're lucky.” _ Draco chuckles at Autumn exaggerating his hand motions as he rolls his eyes.

_ “It is quite an interesting experience with living with you all. Definitely a good way, but sometimes it takes a lot out of my energy.” _ Autumn nods along with a smile as he slowly shovels food into his mouth.

_ “I have noticed that. I also learned that to an extent, we all share a set combined amount of energy available.” _ Draco entire being pauses before looking up at Autumn surprised. He sets his silverware down, and folds his hands to rest his head.

_ “Care to elaborate?” _ Autumn gulps down the food in his mouth before setting down his own spoon.

_ “Alright, so you know how when we initially change it causes you to feel a wave of exhaustion?” _

_ “Yah?” _

_ “Well, any time we change forms, combine, separate, or do something to change us we use up some energy.” _

_ “Hm. I guess that makes enough sense. We already share the same body, so why stop at the amount of energy we have.” _

_ “Ah, well I mean sure.” _

_ “So wait, for the energy. Is it combined, or evened out energy?” _

_ “Uh, to our knowledge it was combined at first, but just like how we are starting to blend together, it seems to have been adapting to us and our growth as one. However the growth is kind of a you thing.” _

_ “Hey! What is that supposed to mean?” _

_ “You are still only 15. With our wide expense of age we had to give up half of our energy to be with you forever. The second we combined with you we started practically from the beginning with you. So even though we lost so much of what we had, we still feel like the world is waiting for our arrival once again, but this time we will have a point to ground ourselves when we need you the most, or when you need us the most.” _ Draco watches in awe as Autumn’s eye seem to ignite with passion and wisdom from far away lands that Draco can only wish he wanted to go to. With the remaining time they continued to eat their food.

“Hey, do you guys mind is we sit here?” Draco and Autumn look up from their plates to spot a small group of three people awkwardly standing around. Autumn looks around seeing no other table with even one free spot left, while Draco nodded.

_ “Do you any of you sign?” _ Draco signs to them and Autumn rolls his eyes before tapping Draco to his attention.

_ “You do realize how dumb that is to sign right?” _ Draco opens his mouth and holds a finger up before huffing and holding his hand out to Autumn and nodding sadly.

_ “I guess you are right. I just really don't want to have to speak. Can you do it?” _ Autumn smiles and shakes his head.

_ “You are absolutely unbelievable.” _

_ “Please?” _

“How about I ask?” Autumn and Draco look to the voice that came from above Draco. Winter ruffles Draco’s hair before going to the edge of the table and squatting down and folding his arms in front of himself with an exhausted look on his face.

_ “Have fun?” _ Autumn smiles to Winter, who in turn glares at him with a light growl.

“We know what you mean you big old jerk.” All three of their voices blend together.

“What the fuck was that? Hey, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like a damned poltergeist.”

“I didn't hear anything. Plus, it’s hella loud in here, so I wouldn't be surprised if something like that were to be heard. Just go back to eating.” Winter rolls his eyes.

“So anyways, here. You can take my wretched- delightful- sisters.” Spring butt in as Winter spoke disappointed. Draco can see from his peripheral the person from before looks over at Winter in surprise before squinting.

“Excuse me, but are you the same people that were in the training deck earlier?” All three look over to them who has alerted their other friends, who are also now interested. Winter rolls his eyes while Spring makes him smirk a full fanged smile.

“Why yes, we were. Why do you ask?”

“You all seemed very familiar. That and the fact that you all don't really fit into the crowd.” The person gives a sad smile while shrugging. A couple others behind them start giggling.

Winter stands up, leaving Spring sitting and Summer right behind him starting to form herself. Winter starts to half shift between his two bodies, causing the clothing on him to start ripping at the seams as his body grows and cracks into new places grotesquely. Behind him, Summer is elegantly flowing into her between form, and strides up next to him as a roar plows out of them and they stomp over to the poor souls still screaming into their faces.

The tattoos leave Winter, and crawl back up Draco's body. He holds up a hand, and the two blood thirsty dragons stop stone solid in everything they were doing, waiting. Draco stands up, and motions Spring over with a nod of his head, which she immediately does, flying back into him in a hug motion. With Spring safe, Draco looks over to the two towering figures that cleared a yard or space all around them. Draco snaps, and the two immediately back off and complete their shift to curl around Draco, who in turn picks up their clothes and bags. Autumn, without being instructed, starts to help grabbing things. Without a word Draco leads them out of the room in a frenzy of anger to their room.


	11. Transformations are Tough

The second the door opens Draco sets the bags into a corner of the room, and forces the three on him to be pushed out as he storms around the room cleaning.

Everyone is silent, not needing to speak as they listen to Draco furiously scolding the two polar opposite seasons, and himself before deciding to figure out if they have an outside area for training and fighting. Draco leaves the four behind as he storms out the room still profusely upset, and slowly transforming.

The second the door shuts all four stand up and follow Draco far behind. Autumn staggers behind as he transforms to leave his clothes in the room.

Once Draco is past the training deck door he has his tail and all of the scales up to his chin, down to his wrists, and to his waist. His head has his antlers and ears from the back, as well as his hair started to shift between hair, and fur. Claws scrape at his head, and clack on the ground while he starts to slow down. His body starts to lean over in pain as his bones grow and shift with his joints, pushing at his organs and muscles causing areas of his skin to be awkwardly pushed, and stretched.

No one but the five were in the deck so when Draco started to growl and scream in pain, it echoed on the walls bouncing around in spurts.

Spring goes to try to help Draco, but the other three hold her back as they force themselves to stay back as well. Painful screams echo into their heads as Draco tries to call for them in confusion. They send saddened love as they already know what is going on. Draco continues gasping for air as his nostrils flare in protest.

_ “What is happening to me!” _ Draco roars out a jumbled mess as his terrified voice is clear in their heads.

“You are transforming.”

_ “Into what!” _

“A dragon. Just like us.” The siblings all slowly wobble their way over.

_ “Why?!” _

“Your body decided you are healthy enough for the first full moon of the month shift.” Draco’s eyes burst open as a large scream shakes out of his shot throat. Fear is all he can feel as he lives through the trauma of his past with his new body.

“You are almost done, just a little longer. Let it flow through you, not against you.” Draco whips his head to look at Summer with pleading eyes.

With what seemed like the end of the process Draco is spread flat on the ground, while the four finally start to smother him with purring as they rub their heads against him.

Heavy panting slowly dies down from Draco as he gets assured by the four that it is all okay.

Draco is able to slowly get up eventually with their help, and he starts to slowly get used to his bodys new feeling.

All four slowly back away to a foot away from Draco to look at him completely. His body was grey with his mane being black, and tan antlers. His body was more like a drake than a lung dragon for length of his body.

With a deep sigh Draco flicks his tail, and looks back surprised.

“What? Didn’t expect to have a tail?”

_ “No, It’s just the fact that it feels so natural. I guess the closest I can describe it as is if I had a third leg, but more bendable.” _ Draco shakes off the extra invisible layer of energy from his body before continuing to the fighting matts.


End file.
